SELWESKI: Romney, Obama keep voters guessing about 2013

By Chad Selweski, Macomb Daily Political Writer

Saturday, October 27, 2012

After more than a year of campaigning, after three presidential debates, the voters still do not know – with less than two weeks to go to Election Day – what to expect in 2013 from Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

What will a Romney presidency bring? Will his foreign policy mirror that of the Obama administration, as his moderate statements in the final debate suggest? What IRS deductions will he cut to make room for his $5 trillion tax cut, and will those changes make home mortgages and college tuition more expensive while hurting charities and downgrading working-class families which rely upon the child tax credit?

What will a second Obama term amount to? The president has never specified his agenda for the next four years, except for a more-of-the-same mantra, which is not comforting to the millions of voters who are disappointed in Obama’s first four years. The move last week to produce a booklet with policy specifics was certainly too little, too late.

Several news organizations have pointed out that the issues dominating this campaign – gas prices, immigration, health care, government regulations, taxes and federal spending – don’t fully match up with the maladies facing the nation, particularly unemployment, underemployment and falling wages.

We have witnessed a campaign for the White House that has had its moments when substance prevailed, and yet we have also been subjected to countless misstatements and half-truths by both candidates. Too often, the media has focused their attention on gaffes and gimmicks.

In recent weeks, voters have endured too many shallow campaign moments with an emphasis on Sesame Street’s Big Bird, “binders full of women,” Donald Trump’s $5 million stunt, silly revelations of Romney’s spray-tanning, and an over-the-top reaction to the Obama camp’s “first time” web ad.

Meanwhile, the number of issues that have received little attention is disturbing: the lingering housing crisis, the “too big to fail” banks that have grown in size, political corruption and cronyism in the campaign finance system, ways to break the political gridlock on Capitol Hill such as filibuster reform, the Pentagon’s growing reliance on drones to fight the war on terror, the crazy weather over the past two years and whether climate change is to blame, homelessness and rising poverty, and the real reasons for our shrinking middle class and how fleeting the solutions are.

In addition, the “fiscal cliff” facing the U.S. in the next two months if Congress doesn’t act has been largely brushed aside. By the end of the year, the Bush tax cuts will expire, the Obama payroll tax cut will end, the Alternative Minimum Tax that protects the upper middle class will expire, and the harsh “sequestration” budget cuts for the military and numerous social programs will take effect.

How the two candidates intend to free us from this mess is unclear. Because Congress is making noises about a temporary fix, followed by a comprehensive solution in 2013, the fiscal cliff questions are equally relevant when posed to Romney.

Business executives are becoming jittery over the entire situation. Those pro-business lawmakers who have repeatedly exclaimed that the business community hates uncertainty are certainly not making any progress on that front as the Jan. 1 deadline approaches. Instead, in Washington and on the campaign trail all eyes are on Nov. 6.

The candidates’ short-sightedness which leaves 2013 and beyond a mystery has cheated the voters of national discussions about the real cause of America’s declining prosperity – the digital revolution and automation, expanded globalization, and the nation’s slipping educational system.

According to the Census Bureau, family income (adjusted for inflation) has fallen by 8 percent since 2000. In contrast, each decade before 2000, going back to World War II, brought increases in median income of nearly 30 percent.

Worse yet, getting back to those vibrant income increases is not likely because the previous numbers were comparisons to times when the country was poorer, post-war Europe and Japan were struggling to revive, strong labor unions boosted wages and benefits, and women and minorities were coming into their own.

Studies by economists indicate that some of the politicians’ favorite talking points -- illegal immigration, gas prices, taxes and the minimum wage – have little impact on prosperity. While taxes seem to dominate every political discussion in America in this decade, the federal tax burden is at the lowest it’s been since the 1950s.

Gas prices will probably be pushed to the back of the line in the final 10 days of the campaign because they are rapidly declining. The truth is that oil produced in North America goes on the world market and no president can control those prices.

The disconnect between presidential campaigns and economic reality is based in part on candidates’ unwillingness to ever concede that there are some issues and dynamics that the presidency cannot control. Chief among them, globalization. Tough talk about trade barriers and tariffs aimed at China could make matters worse.

Those who dismiss the connection between wages and jobs and technology and automation are missing the mark. This is about more than just ATM machines and online shopping. The American manufacturing sector produces far more than it did in 1979, despite employing almost 40 percent fewer workers. The 21st Century stars of the U.S. business world, the big tech companies, create a tiny fraction of the American jobs that General Motors and General Electric did in the 1960s and 1970s.

Yet, those are numbers voters never hear from Obama or Romney. Instead, figures that amount to spin and “cherry picking” are tossed about. The fact-checkers who study the candidates’ claims have found a 2012 spiral in the number of partisan voters who pick and choose their facts.

The 24-hour cable TV talking heads spout countless figures on polls and sub-sets of polling figures and voting trends based on demographics and states and even counties. But, of course, they cannot offer a comprehensive critique of Romney’s plans and Obama’s plans because that would put their viewers to sleep. Or, worse yet, encourage them to change the channel.

Mark McKinnon, a founder of No Labels, a centrist group that rejects hyper-partisanship, has said that, by definition, facts shouldn’t be partisan. Referring to a quote from an old Scottish writer, McKinnon says that leaders in Washington “use statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts -- for support rather than for illumination.”

So, those voters who are not knee-jerk partisans sit in the political darkness, hoping to make the right decision on Election Day. But still not knowing what 2013 might bring.